The Hong Kong Free Press comes on 17 December 2020 with the AFP story that the UN Special Raporteur Mary Lawlor slammed a years-long crackdown on rights defenders and lawyers in China, highlighting the case of one attorney who disappeared after revealing he was tortured in detention.
Mary Lawlor, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, warned in a statement endorsed by seven other UN rights experts, that a clampdown that began more than five years ago aimed at courtroom critics of Communist authorities was continuing unabated.
“Since the so-called 709 crackdown began on 9 July 2015, the profession of human rights lawyer has been effectively criminalised in China,” she said. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2020/07/12/china-five-years-after-major-crackdown-international-community-must-support-to-human-rights-lawyers/]
In her statement, Lawlor pointed to the recent arrest and “enforced disappearance” of activist and attorney Chang Weiping as emblematic of Beijing’s efforts to silence lawyers who speak out about the deterioration of human rights in the country.
The lawyer, she said, was placed by security officials in Baoji city in a form of secret extrajudicial detention typically used against dissidents, known as “residential surveillance in a designated location” (RSDL), for 10 days last January. [see also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2018/01/10/more-on-residential-surveillance-in-a-designated-location-rsdl-in-china/]
He was held on suspicion of “subversion of state power” and his licence was annulled, she said. Just days after he posted a video online in October describing the torture and ill-treatment he was allegedly subjected to during his detention, he was detained again and returned to RSDL in retaliation for his video. “Since then, the defender’s whereabouts remain unknown, his lawyers have been unable to contact him and no charges have been brought against him,” Wednesday’s statement said.
“Fundamental human rights are not a threat to any government or society, and neither are the individuals who defend those rights,” she added. “I urge the Chinese authorities to release at once Chang Weiping and all other detained and disappeared human rights defenders.”
Not surprisingly The reaction by China was swift and tough: “By using misinformation, relevant (UN) mandate holders blatantly smear China,” Liu Yuyin, a spokesman at the Chinese mission in Geneva, said in a statement issued 16 December. As for Chang’s case, Liu insisted his “legitimate rights were fully protected.” Chang “was subject to criminal coercive measures by the public security organ in Shanxi Province on October 22, 2020, on suspicion of criminal offences.”
The remarks by Lawlor and other UN experts about the lawyer’s case, Liu warned, “seriously (violate) the spirit of the rule of law and fully exposes their bias against China.”
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 